Hitscan archers are plain unfair

Want to know how unfair? I just did this little test.

+50% movement speed alongside Phase Run, I sprinted through Dark Forest. I can literally run past melee mobs without them being able to hit me because of the motion buffer; I'm out of melee range before their attack animation comes far enough. Obviously I can run past all the vipers, since their projectiles aren't fast enough to hit me.

Every single archer hits me. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

I can outrun Cold Snap spamming water elementals. I can't outrun archers.

I don't know about you, but I expect to be able to dodge projectiles. ALL projectiles. Ranged mobs should be BALANCED around the expectation that players are able to dodge them.

But no, archers deal the exact same damage as vipers, elemental mages, and other projectile-based enemies, and in some cases (Lightning Arrow skeletons) they deal significantly more.

If you want archers to stay hitscan, balance their damage potential. If you don't want to decrease their damage, make me able to dodge them. Because right now, 90% of the damage I take is damage I am absolutely unable to dodge.

+1

Agree completely.

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0nin wrote:

I expect to be able to dodge projectiles.

Agree with this.

I agree with this - however, I don't think players need to necessarily be changed as well.

Agreed. Arrows need to be missiles, just like fireballs and lightning bolts.

Agreed.

+1

I don't get it. It is an attack so get more evasion if you wanna dodge them, right? (Except that evasion is crap and you may want to get more armor or life instead.)

Edit: Actually it might be a bad idea to change them so you can outrun them. I mean, we need different types of attacks so you need to change strategy when facing certain enemies. Otherwise you can just outrun everything for example, which is boring. 'Dumbing down' idea imo.

I tend to agree with the original poster, with PvP in mind as well.

Dodgeable arrows would actually make increased projectile speed useful for archers, a mod quite often found on quivers. Would also balance the power of the very nasty namelocks in PvP. In addition, this change would make room for a Homing Arrow skill with the old behaviour.

Hey 0nin, the way archers are sort of "ranged melee at this point as in when a shot is fired, there is an accuracy and evasion check, like melee. I think arrows (your included, if you're an archer) are also calculated as such. And that arrows as "ranged melee" attacks are currently not considered to be projectiles.

There was a thread about this in the forum. I'm not sure if this also previously appeared in the "known issues list" <-nope

I'm looking for it now and I'll update this post accordingly.


Here's the old thread:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/10440/page/1

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wiggin wrote:

I don't get it. It is an attack so get more evasion if you wanna dodge them, right? (Except that evasion is crap and you may want to get more armor or life instead.)

Edit: Actually it might be a bad idea to change them so you can outrun them. I mean, we need different types of attacks so you need to change strategy when facing certain enemies. Otherwise you can just outrun everything for example, which is boring. 'Dumbing down' idea imo.

I'd be okay with this concept if it were actually balanced accordingly. Clearly, unavoidable ranged is significantly more powerful than avoidable ranged. Therefore, unavoidable ranged should do less damage and have less chance to do nasty stuff. But it's quite the opposite; unless if your armor is significant, lightning archers WILL outdamage lightning mages, and other such comparisons.

Either the current system needs to be balanced properly, or it needs to be reworked. The way it works now is clearly broken.